694 



ON HYPEROD APED ON GORDONI. 



tebraa are amphicoclous. The maxillo-palatines appeared perfectly 

 similar, more so than he at first believed ; indeed there was scarcely 

 apparent specific difference between those described by him and 

 those of the new Elgin specimen. 



Mr. Whitaker wished to thank Prof. Huxley for the good lesson 

 given by the absence of dogmatism in his paper. 



Dr. Baur inquired as to the development of the parietal foramen. 



Prof. Huxley said that he could not find a trace of any such fora- 

 men in Hyperodapedo n. 



Dr. Baur said that this showed the specialization of Hyperoda- 

 pedon. fSimcedosaurus or Champsosaurus must have some relation 

 to Sphenodon, but it is also a specialized form. He pointed out some 

 vertebral points of similarity between the former and Sphenodon. 



With regard to the systematic position of Hyperodapedon and its 

 allies he would prefer putting them under the Khvnchocephalia apart 

 from Lacertilia as a group equivalent to Ophidia and Mosasauria. 



Dr. Blaneord described the relative position of the Hyperoda- 

 joedon-loe&s in India, showing that they were, in all probability, 

 later than the Dicyno Jon-beds, and closely allied, if not identical, 

 with the beds containing fishes of Liassic type. He also noticed 

 that Uromastioc, an agamoid lizard which shows some points of re- 

 semblance in dentition to Hyperodapedon, is exclusively herbivorous. 



Prof. Boyd Dawkins said that Mr. Charles Moore's examination 

 of the Bhaetic strata which overlie the Hyperodapedon-he&s of 

 Elgin, proved that the latter occupied the same paloeontologieal horizon 

 below the Jurassic series as the Hyperodap>edon-loeds of India men- 

 tioned by Dr. Blanford. 



The President said, the difficulty about the position of the Elgin 

 beds was not so great as was often supposed. In the Old Bed- 

 Sandstone quarries fish-remains are by no means rare, but in the exten- 

 sive quarries whence the reptiles have been procured no fishes are 

 found, and recently the reptiliferous beds have been shown to overlie 

 unconformably the Holoptychian beds. The whole of the strata are 

 greatly faulted and covered with drift. Hyperodapedon and Dieyno- 

 don certainly occurred together, and the specimens of the latter were 

 being worked out by Dr. Traquair. The Bhsetic fossils obtained by 

 Mr. Charles Moore were from a boulder. 



Prof. Huxley, in reply, said he remembered the time when 

 palseontological papers were not received with such general consent. 

 He begged leave to thank the President and Eellows for the very 

 cordial reception they had given him. He was unable to agree 

 with Dr. Baur's views as to the classification of lizards and their 

 allies, and considered that it was undesirable to multiply great 

 groups too much. The Rhynchocephalian forms did not appear 

 to him to have any real affinity with Simcedosaumis, nor were they 

 so much generalized as, for instance, Telerpeton. Probably in Car- 

 boniferous times the gap between Labyrinthodonts and Lizards was 

 bridged over, and intermediate forms occurred. 



